Some types of surgery, for example open-heart surgery, require that the patient's body should be cooled by several degrees from its normal body temperature to reduce the patient's metabolic rate. This gives the surgeon a longer period to work on organs where the blood supply may be limited or even cut off. Temperature regulation is also recognized as a major problem in pediatrics and neo-natal surgery.
In order to cool the body of a patient prior to an operation, the patient is usually anaesthetized and packed in ice to rapidly lower the body temperature. In certain circumstances, ice is placed inside the body cavity during an operation. This method, while providing rapid cooling of the patient's body temperature, offers no degree of control over the temperature drop of the patient's body during an operation. This problem is resolved in accordance with present invention by a garment which when worn by a patient during an operation, will enable a surgeon or other medical personnel to control the drop in body temperature.